20 



note expressing his appreciation for our reception of you here last 

 Thursday and for the affair which some of us attended last Thursday 

 evening with the Council, the President's Commission, members of 

 this committee, and Members of the Senate, at which we were privi- 

 leged to hear the Vice President with his usual enthusiastic interest and 

 concern. 



If we had more folks with quite the go-go that the Vice President 

 has, we would really go forward in this field. Mr. Rogers, will you 

 take the chair now and recognize the members who are here, and if 

 they don't have any questions, come back to the counsel. 



Mr. RoGEKS (presiding). Mr. Karth? 



Mr. Karth. Mr. Chairman, I want to join Mr. Lennon and our 

 other colleagues who have very ably and enthusiastically endorsed 

 what Dr. Wenk has said. I might say I also join them in congratulating 

 him for having done such an extremely able job in such a short period 

 of time. 



I might say. Dr. Wenk, that I am one of those who feel very strongly 

 that in most cases study commissions of this kind probably are some- 

 what of a waste of time. I want you to know that I don't feel that way 

 in this instance. 



I think that the magnitude of your job is of such nature and scope 

 that really, when we wrote the law, we probably didn't recognize and 

 didn't appreciate in our own minds just what kind of a job this was 

 going to demand on the part of the Commission and the Council. 



I think, Mr. Chairman, that when some 27 agencies of Government 

 are involved in the matter that we are all interested in, oceanography^ 

 in one way or another, we can then better understand the job that Dr. 

 Wenk and his staff and the Council and the Commission have to do. 



I am not just interested. Dr. Wenk, in the field of oceanography 

 because it is exciting and new and different and something that we 

 all look forward to using to solve some of the world's problems in the 

 future, but I am interested because I feel that only with comprehen- 

 sive study and good solid recommendations based on fact and inquiry 

 and investigation can we really make oceanography do what we hope 

 oceanography will do and what we think it has to do in the future. 



I am not only interested in your studies and those recommendations, 

 but I am interested in what Congress will do with those studies and 

 recommendations once you make them. The real point I am making 

 and the question I am leading up to, I guess, is whether or not the 

 time schedule that has been set out in the law provides you and 

 your staff and the Commission and the Council with the necessary time 

 to do the job that I think needs to be done. 



If this job isn't a well and completely done job, it seems to me that 

 we might well fail in the whole field of oceanography. I wonder, Mr, 

 Chairman, if the doctor could address himself to that question. 



Dr. Wenk. I appreciate your comments, Mr. Karth, with regard 

 to the complexity of the task that we face. Your comment about the 

 number of Federal agencies involved is quite accurate. Other dimen- 

 sions of that complexity are revealed by the number of different issues 

 that are involved related to questions of national security, economic 

 growth, maritime shipping, the question of the uses of the seashore, and 

 so on. For those of us now studying this marine science area in 

 depth, we are discovering each day more and more issues that deserve 

 careful consideration. 



